


Gingerbread Houses

by rosymamacita



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Christmas, F/M, First Kiss, Fluff, Neighbors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-22
Updated: 2015-12-22
Packaged: 2018-05-08 12:32:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5497169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosymamacita/pseuds/rosymamacita
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bellamy Blake is too young to be raising his ten year old sister, but their little house is not so bad, their little life is not so bad. They are making it, so far.</p><p> It's their first Christmas on their own when Clarke Griffin comes knocking at their door, to invite her new young neighbor Octavia to a gingerbread house making party.</p><p>Bellamy is enchanted the moment he sees her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gingerbread Houses

**Author's Note:**

> I got inspired by all the Christmas Bellarke fics.

The knock came one night just as Bellamy had put his ten year old sister Octavia to bed. In the four months they had been living there, almost no one had knocked on the door, and certainly not after dark on a Friday night. He knew that Octavia was peering through the keyhole to see who it was, not asleep at all.

Bellamy opened the door. “Uh, hello?”

The girl standing there was gorgeous, dressed in a christmas sweater with a halo of blonde hair back lit by the street lamp. “Hi!” she said, with a big smile and stuck her hand out for him to shake. “I’m Clarke Griffin.”

He blinked at her and took her hand, because that was what he was supposed to do, but he was really running on auto pilot. His mouth dry. “Bellamy,” he said. “Bellamy Blake.”

“Octavia’s brother, right?”

“Uh, yeah. Do I know you?”

She blushed a little and ducked her head. “No, not really. I live down the street, on Alpha Lane. I met your sister while she was out riding her bike. Sometimes we hang out on my porch and talk.”

“Octavia,” Bellamy said and shook his head. “I’m sorry if she’s bothering you. She can get a little bit enthusiastic about people she likes. I’ll tell her to knock it off.”

Clarke laughed. “No. That’s not why I came by. I like her. I actually… well, I’m having a bunch of kids from the neighborhood over to make gingerbread houses and I know you guys just moved in a few months ago. Maybe Octavia would like to come and make a gingerbread house too.”

Bellamy just stared at her with his mouth open. He was really not used to people being nice to him. It always made him uncomfortable, like when Vera Kane, the principal of Ark Elementary hired him on as a janitor and rented them the dinky cottage behind her house so that CPS would see that he was a responsible adult at 19 and let him be Octavia’s legal guardian. He was still so uncomfortable with that kindness that he did all Vera’s yard work and fixed anything that was broken in her house and carried her groceries in from her car, because who does something for nothing?

“You don’t have to do that for us,” he said. “We’re okay. Octavia is okay.” He said, and he knew his voice was churlish. But he couldn’t stop it. 

“BELL!” he heard from behind Octavia’s door.

He winced. “Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to be rude. I forget sometimes.”

But Clarke didn’t look offended, she looked amused in fact, like she was having fun standing on his tiny stoop blinking up at him in the dark. “I’m not doing it for you, Bellamy Blake, or to make you feel weird. My dad used to build gingerbread houses with all the neighborhood kids when I was little.” Her face fell a little then. He watched the shadows cross her eyes and he wanted to wrap her up in a hug. But she shook it off and smiled again, tighter this time. “No one’s had a gingerbread house building party since my dad died, and I wanted to bring it back. I wanted to…” She faltered.

“Okay,” he said before she could go on. He had no more defenses against this girl. He didn’t want her to be sad. He wanted to help her remember her dad who died. He knew what it was like to lose your parent. To miss them. “Octavia will be there.”

“Yeah?” she asked, the glint back in her eye. “Tomorrow at 10am. And you can come too, big brother. In case you’re worried I’m going to make her crawl into the oven to clean it or something.”

He grinned. “I don’t think you’re the witch from Hansel and Gretel.”

“You’d better come just to make sure,” she said. “I could be dangerous.” 

He nodded. “Tomorrow at ten.”

Her big smile was back. “I’m off to invite the rest of my neighborhood snacks—I mean guests.” She winked at him and then strolled off into the night. Bellamy watched her go. He couldn’t help himself. 

When he closed the door, he could hear Octavia jumping around with glee in her room.

“Back to bed, O!” he called, and then settled down at his computer. He had an essay to write for his online ancient history class. Sadly, he couldn’t think of a single coherent thought beyond gingerbread houses and bewitching golden haired girls.

***

Of course Clarke lived in one of the biggest, fanciest houses in the neighborhood. They didn’t belong there. Bellamy was ready to turn around and head home, but Octavia grabbed his hand and hauled him to the front door. 

“I’m sorry we’re late…” Bellamy started when the door opened upon a disheveled Clarke. Her blonde hair was tied up in a messy top knot and she had frosting covering her hands and smudged on her shirt.

Her eyes were brimming over with tears. “It’s a disaster!” she nearly wept. “Everything is falling apart.”

“What happened?” He asked, concerned, stepping in the front door without even being asked. She wrapped one sugar covered hand around his bicep and led Bellamy and Octavia to the dining room, a scene of utter chaos.

The long dining table had half a dozen kids seated around it, in varying states of sugar-frostedness, and a each kid had the wreckage of a gingerbread house collapsing in front them.

“Everything is literally falling apart,” she said to him, and this time the tears started falling. 

He couldn’t help it. He laughed. 

“It’s not funny!” she said, and hit his chest, leaving behind her frosting mark, right above his heart. 

“Sorry,” he said, and stopped laughing. Or tried to. He knew he had a smirk on his face but he couldn’t stop it. “It’s a little funny.” He looked over at the kids, eating the frosting out of piping bags, or with sour gummy worms hanging out of their mouths, big smiles and hyper, glazed eyes, no matter how the walls of the houses were falling apart. “And they’re having fun.”

She looked back at the mess in her dining room, and a wiped a tear away, leaving behind a smudge of frosting high on her cheekbone. Bellamy clenched his hands to keep from brushing it off with his thumb. 

“Okay,” she said, with a tremulous smile. “It’s a little funny. I don’t know how my dad did it.”

He heard a camera snap and looked over at Octavia. She had his phone and was taking pictures of the disaster area. He gave her a look.

“What? It’s awesome,” she said but handed back his phone. 

“We’ll fix this, Princess,” he said.

She scrunched her nose at him. “Princess? I thought I was the witch.”

“Nah,” he said and then snapped his fingers at Octavia, she looked at him and he nodded towards the mess. She went to the nearest kid, and started showing him how to cement the walls together. Bellamy went to the smallest one, a little girl named Charlotte, maybe about 6 years old. 

“Watch this,” he said, squeezing out a healthy dose of thick frosting on all corners of the gingerbread cookie. “Now we have to let it sit for a few minutes, to get it all sticky. The trick is to not rush. Don’t touch it, okay?” The little girl nodded as he moved on to the next gingerbread disaster. Clarke watched him with wide eyes and then moved on to another kid, following his steps and soon, between them, every gingerbread house was up, and constructed.

Bellamy and Clarke stood back and watched the kids decorating their houses with frosting and candy. Octavia was making friends. A skinny boy with silly goggles and an asian kid with hair that was so long he could barely see past his bangs sat on either side of her and made her laugh with the tales of all their adventures. He smiled to see it. 

“You fooled me,” Clarke said.

He looked at her in surprise. She still had the frosting on her cheek, but her hands were clean now. “How did I fool you?”

“You didn’t need my lame gingerbread house party. You and Octavia are the experts. How did you get to be so good at that?”

He lowered his eyes. “It was my mom. She used to bake them from scratch and we’d make these whole villages of them. She really got into it.”

Clarke blushed. “This must seem like such a joke to you, with my packaged kits and fake gingerbread.”

He shook his head. “No, this is great. To be honest, I never even thought about doing gingerbread houses. I just… I never had to make Christmas happen before. We haven’t even gotten a tree yet. I’ve just been… I don’t know, trying to hold everything together. So this is really good. It’s just what she needed. And it’s nice to meet the kids in the neighborhood. It’s good. It’s— thanks.”

He had to stop talking at look at the floor for a while to manage the gratitude that swelled in his chest. He knew she hadn’t done it for them, that she was just being a generally nice person, but including Octavia in this meant so much more than she knew.

“When— when did she die, your mom?” Clarke asked quietly.

He hated answering questions about his mom but it felt okay coming from her. “This summer. July twelfth.”

“And now you take care of her all by yourself? How old are you?” 

“I just turned twenty,” he said and waited for the shock, the disdain, the disbelief, the argument that he was too young, he couldn’t do it, it was a waste of his life to take on such a burden so young, that he wouldn’t know how to raise a young girl and would ruin her life.

But Clarke just linked her arm in his and said, “Me too. I think I want to be an art teacher. This was really fun.”

He shot her a look, remembering her panic when she opened her door.

“You might need to give me some more pointers on gingerbread house construction, though.”

“I could do that,” he said, and smiled.

Two of the girls, sisters named Harper and Monroe invited all the kids to their backyard to jump on the trampoline and after some begging eyes from Octavia, they all ran off to play while the gingerbread houses dried.

Bellamy stayed behind to help Clarke clean up the mess, which was the best part of the whole day, especially when he got to take her face in his two hands and wipe the frosting from her cheekbone, finally.

“I’ve been dying to do that all morning,” he said.

She blinked at him, her lips falling open, before she reached up and pulled him down into a kiss.

They broke apart, breathing heavily. She wrapped her arms around his neck and leaned into him. “I’ve been dying to do that since I knocked on your door last night,” she said.

“I think I’m going to like living in this neighborhood.”


End file.
